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About A Death in the Family

The classic American novel, re-published for the 100th anniversary of James Agee’s birth

Published in 1957, two years after its author’s death at the age of forty-five, A Death in the Family remains a near-perfect work of art, an autobiographical novel that contains one of the most evocative depictions of loss and grief ever written. As Jay Follet hurries back to his home in Knoxville, Tennessee, he is killed in a car accident—a tragedy that destroys not only a life, but also the domestic happiness and contentment of a young family. A novel of great courage, lyric force, and powerful emotion, A Death in the Family is a masterpiece of American literature.

About A Death in the Family

Forty years after its original publication, James Agee’s last novel seems, more than ever, an American classic. For in his lyrical, sorrowful account of a man’s death and its impact on his family, Agee painstakingly created a small world of domestic happiness and then showed how quickly and casually it could be destroyed.

On a sultry summer night in 1915, Jay Follet leaves his house in Knoxville, Tennessee, to tend to his father, whom he believes is dying. The summons turns out to be a false alarm, but on his way back to his family, Jay has a car accident and is killed instantly. Dancing back and forth in time and braiding the viewpoints of Jay’s wife, brother, and young son, Rufus, Agee creates an overwhelmingly powerful novel of innocence, tenderness, and loss that should be read aloud for the sheer music of its prose.

"An utterly individual and original book…one of the most deeply worked out expressions of human feeling that I have ever read."–Alfred Kazin, New York Times Book Review

"It is, in the full sense, poetry….The language of the book, at once luminous and discreet…remains in the mind."–New Republic

"People I know who read A Death in the Family forty years ago still talk about it. So do I. It is a great book, and I’m happy to see it done anew."–Andre Dubus, author of Dancing After Hours and Meditations From A Moveable Chair

About James Agee

James Agee (1909-1955) started his writing career as a reporter for Fortune, which led to his writing Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. In addition to film reviews, he wrote several scripts, including The African Queen and The Night of… More about James Agee

About James Agee

James Agee (1909-1955) started his writing career as a reporter for Fortune, which led to his writing Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. In addition to film reviews, he wrote several scripts, including The African Queen and The Night of… More about James Agee

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Praise

“[James Agee’s words] are so indelibly etched someplace inside of me that I couldn’t reach to rub them out even if I wanted to. And I never want to.” —Steve Earle, from the Introduction

“The work of a writer whose power with English words can make you gasp.” —Alfred Kazin, The New York Times Book Review

“It is, in the full sense, poetry. . . . The language of the book, at once luminous and discreet . . . remains in the mind.” —The New Republic

“Wonderfully alive.” —The New Yorker“A Death in the Family remains one of the most beautifully written of all American novels. James Agee’s talent was both luxuriant and precise, and the opening sequence is still one of the finest prose poems in our language. He is one of those writers who cause other writers to shiver with pure pleasure.” —Pat Conroy

“People I know who read A Death in the Family forty years ago still talk about it. So do I. It is a great book, and I’m happy to see it done anew.” —Andre Dubus

“For as long as fiction is read, James Agee’s A Death in the Family stands as an American masterpiece. There is no stronger, more moving document in our literature than this account of a father’s sudden death in the early years of our century. Here are the full spectrum of emotion and resonance, the tensile, perfectly nuanced language, the prayerful inquiry into identity itself, and characters so perfectly rounded that they exist in every specificity of inquiry, acute awareness, dumb love, and sensual arrest. This book has been my Bible; may it bless new generations of readers.” —Jayne Anne Phillips